Rosewood refers to a number of richly hued timbers, brownish with darker veining. All rosewoods

are strong and heavy, taking an excellent polish, being suitable for flooring, furniture and turnery. In general, supplies are poor through overexploitation. Some species become canopy trees (to 30 m high), and big pieces can occasionally be found in the trade.

The pre-eminent rosewood appreciated in the western world is Dalbergia nigra, Brazilian rosewood (now CITES-listed). It is also known as Rio rosewood or Bahia rosewood. This wood has a strong sweet smell, which persists over the years, explaning the name “rosewood”.

Another classic rosewood is Dalbergia latifolia known as (East) Indian rosewood or sonokeling. Other rosewoods can be found in tropical America, South East Asia and Madagascar. All the real rosewoods belong to the genus Dalbergia, but note that the reverse is not true: only a few (perhaps not much over a dozen) species of the genus are recognized as rosewoods.

The woods of some other species in the genus Dalbergia are notable, even famous, woods in their own right: African blackwood, cocobolo, kingwood and tulipwood. The Indian souvenir trade tries to sell objects made of Dalbergia sissoo (sometimes stained purple) as if they were rosewood. The wood of some other species is usable for toolhandles, at best.

The timber trade will sell many timbers under the name ’rosewood’ (with anadjective) due to similarities in figure. A fair number of these timbers come from other leguminous genera: one that is often mentioned is Machaerium scleroxylon.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Rosewood”.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 29th, 2005 at 11:30 am and is filed under Aromatherapy and Essential Oils. Both comments and pings are currently closed.